If President Barack Obama’s looking for someone to sell his
agenda to help America’s cities, he might
not have to look any further than
Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski.

In a telephone interview from the Democratic National Convention
in Charlotte, N.C, last week, Allentown’s top elected official took the
entirely unsurprising step of pronouncing the current administration’s urban
strategy a success.

“The president has been extremely responsive,” to the needs of
cities, Pawlowski said, ticking off a list of federal largess that he said
included funding for 20 new city police officers, $60 million for work on a
bridge over the Lehigh River and $7 million in additional federal stimulus
funds for road and infrastructure projects around the city.

The Democrats’ official platform for 2012, adopted in Charlotte,
makes prominent mention of the need for thriving urban centers, pronouncing
them “incubators of innovation and job creation.”

“Cities and metro areas represent over 80 percent of this
country's gross domestic product and 80 percent of this country's population,”
the platform reads. “We are committed to supporting and revitalizing these
communities around the country.”

The National League of Cities, an advocacy group, helped draw up that plank of the party platform, Pawlowski said.

The official Republican platform, meanwhile, includes only indirect
mentions of cities, noting that many face bankruptcy because of ballooning
public pension costs. To Pawlowski, that’s a marked difference between the two
parties.

“There’s no mention in the Republican platform,” he said,
characterizing the GOP’s treatment of cities as “dismissive.”

“If you look at the future of the party, it’s coming from mayors,”
said Pawlowski, whose motives might not be entirely altruistic. He's been mentioned more than once as a possible
Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania governor in 2014.